Maggie's Heritage In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Even though Maggie and Dee are very different in how they look and act, they still have the same heritage. In Everyday Use by Alice Walker is a short story about a mother with her two daughters that are poor and struggling. The story is mostly about the oldest daughter Dee coming home to visit. The heritage of the Walker family is African American and there are things that the girls try to do to remember or connect with their heritage. In Everyday Use it goes beyond the difference of the girls and deals with hoe they value their heritage.
Maggie, the youngest daughter of Mama is described as walking slowly with her head to her cheat and her feet shuffling. She is skittish, quiet and ashamed of herself because she has burn scars from being inside her old burning house when she was younger. Maggie’s view on her heritage is that it involves people. Her mother and she have the same idea of their heritage. Maggie is humble unlike Dee who is self-serving. Maggie takes what she has learned from her ancestors like knowing how to quilt to connect her to her heritage not a quilt to hang up on the wall.

Dee is the oldest of the sisters and she has “nice hair and a fuller figure”(Walker said by her mama.

She has a lighter skin complexion than her sister Maggie. She acts sophisticated, has a lot of attitude and is very judgmental towards others. Her view on her heritage is that it involves things such as the quilt she wanted from her mother and clothing and name changes, such as her changing her name to Wangero Leewankia Kemanjo. In the short story she tries to take a quilt made by her grandmother that she thinks will connect her with her roots as an African American. Dee’s heritage has nothing to do with who she has become as she has grown older, but she can’t realize that and it’s right in front of her the whole time. As mama and Maggie live in their heritage as it is present, Dee is trying to save it as an

artifact.
Throughout the whole story the quilt that was sewn by their grandmother and it shows the value of their culture and the differences of the girls. In the end, it doesn’t matter how you look, act or dress it matters that you can from the same roots as your family. Your heritage is important to preserve because it is our connection to the past. On dictionary.com heritage is defined as “something handed down from the past, such as a tradition”. Even though Maggie and Dee are very different in how they look and act, they still have the same heritage.